


the beginning of tomorrowland, the beginning of casey newton

by ohwhatagloomyshow



Category: Tomorrowland (2015)
Genre: Epilogue, F/F, Fear, Gen, Headcanons Everywhere, I Talk About Casey's Mom, Personal Growth, cross-dimensional lesbians, headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-20
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-04-10 08:36:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4384922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohwhatagloomyshow/pseuds/ohwhatagloomyshow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m afraid I’m gonna turn into a supervillain.”</p><p>an all-over-the-place epilogue of sorts that follows the development of tomorrowland 2.0 and the development of casey newton.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the beginning of tomorrowland, the beginning of casey newton

**Author's Note:**

> i started this story with the summary-quote in my head, and then it went....everywhere?

It’s weird, when she’s seventeen and she moves to another dimension. It’s weird when Frank Walker creates new AIs that specifically search for Dreamers with an architectural leaning. It’s weird when those Dreamers come back and begin work on her new home. It’s _weird_ being Casey Newton. 

~~ 

She’s eighteen, nineteen, twenty, and every six months she greets the newly recruited Dreamers. They’re from every corner of the world and for every new introduction she is so glad and grateful that the first round of Dreamers was able to invent a Bluetooth-looking language translator. (Although it feels like she’s in a novel every time the translator buzzes in her ear—having a device that translates languages feels like some bizarre _deus ex machina_ that only unskilled authors use, even though she was in the lab every day, obsessing over how four Dreamers from four different nations could invent such a wildly useful device.) She never knows the reason why each individual was picked and she doesn’t always want to know; not knowing helps her encourage each group to explore every part of Tomorrowland, not just the areas that house their specialties. She makes friends (or tries to) with every single Dreamer she meets. She had never had many friends at home but now she feels like she is friends with the entire world. 

She’s eighteen and she spends the majority of her free time in the library with Frank; he finds every history of Tomorrowland ever written and she devours each one. After five months she understands Tomorrowland better than he does; she begins to make important and insignificant decisions at his side. In the spirit of the first days of Tomorrowland, they create a Council to lead the city. It’s comprised of ten individuals, ranging from artist to scientist to philosopher, and the first Council is picked by Frank and Casey, who sit in on the first few meetings to make sure things go smoothly. They do. 

She’s nineteen and she, her father, and her brother, are officially declared dead in the eyes of the U.S. government. Frank and the AIs take care of the necessary paperwork and find the easiest way to make it possible for Dreamers to live permanently in Tomorrowland without any problems in the Original Dimension. Not everyone chooses to stay permanently, but those who do bring their partners and their parents and their friends and their kids. The increased non-Dreamer population slowly boosts the Dreamers’ ambition and creativity; Casey personally overseas the creation of school and preschools for the new youngsters, as Tomorrowland hasn’t been around long enough to produce any children of its own. The AIs determine that, after some time, should the citizens who followed loved ones to Tomorrowland leave for any reason, they would immediately be invited back as a Dreamer. Tomorrowland’s population becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. 

She’s twenty and her absolute favorite section of Tomorrowland is the Robotics Colony. Her closest friends develop newer, stronger, faster AIs, ones that become fast friends with their human counterparts. She spends a good majority of her time in the Unsolvable Problem lab, trying to discover the secret to perpetual motion—it’s not a section that ever produces anything useful; in fact, many Dreamers come here to relax, to fiddle with basic mechanics and catch up with friends. Sometimes she sleeps there, too addicted to a particular problem that she vows not to leave until she finds an answer. Most of the time, she wakes up to find snacks beside her head, brought in by her peers. She becomes overwhelmed by this show of kindness every time—even after three years, it’s still surprising. 

She’s twenty-one years old and while she’s doing a better job at leaving the Robotics labs, creating closer friendships with those who aren’t as mechanically-driven as she is, she quickly gets sucked up into the Artist’s Colony. Or, technically, into one artist in particular. Nafisa is a twenty-four year old Pakistani poet and playwright, a second year Dreamer, and she is the most incredible person Casey has ever met. 

It started at one of the larger restaurants in town—Casey chose to sit with a new group of people and Nafisa was the only one brave enough to talk to her. Without their translators, it would have been impossible to begin their friendship: while Nafisa’s English is excellent, Casey’s hearing never recovered from her initial adventures with Athena and Frank, and she refused to accept any of the hearing aids the labs kept developing (she viewed her partial deafness as a rite of passage for the savior of Tomorrowland), and with Nafisa’s accent, Casey was lucky if she could understand every third word. So Nafisa spoke Arabic and Punjabi and the words became understandable English through her translator, and they were able to communicate with each other perfectly. 

They began their friendship with lunches, and then dinners, and then Nafisa showed her around the Artist’s Colony, and Casey gave a tour of the Robotics Colony, and within days it became impossible for them to be apart. Each woman’s talent was the other woman’s weakness; it seemed impossible to run out of conversations and lessons, which turn into jokes and discussions on movies they liked and books they hated and music they couldn’t get enough of. Then they speak of politics, religion, ethics, philosophy, history, mathematics—they complain to each other, they comfort each other when the stresses grow overwhelming (Nafisa goes home every weekend, and every Monday is difficult; Frank has given Casey more control over Tomorrowland and it terrifies her). 

She’s twenty-one and she’s beginning to learn about the power of art; she’s beginning to learn about the power of love, too. 

~~ 

She’s twenty-two and feeling like she’s going to unravel. 

“I’m afraid I’m gonna turn into a supervillain.” 

(She brought this up to Frank two weeks ago, in the library. He turned to her with a half-smile and asked, “What, like Nix? Like you’re gonna turn your back on everything Tomorrowland can be?” 

“No, it’s nothing like Nix—“ 

“Then what are you worrying about, kid? You’re fine.” He went back to his research, and she left with a bad taste in her mouth.) 

It’s nearing midnight and she can only just make out her father in the light that streams through his window. She sits on the corner of his bed, legs crossed, facing him; she heard him sit up as she came in, and she can see the outline of his jaw in the white light. 

“What do you mean, Casey?” They’ve been through this type of routine almost too many times to count. Her first year in Tomorrowland was filled with nightmares, and every time they woke her, she felt like a four year old girl again, with a four year old girl’s desire to spend the rest of the dark and scary night in her parents’ room. At seventeen she started doing it again, knocking on her father’s bedroom door before crawling into the cold side of the bed and explaining her nightmare until she talked herself to sleep. It happened more sporadically as she adjusted to Tomorrowland and her duties, but at least once a season she would find herself half-running to her dad’s room for safety. 

“I think I’ve just been hanging out too much in the Robotics Colony.” She can’t remember her nightmare at all, only the crippling fear and loneliness she had woken up with. “The Unsolvable Problem recently has been time travel and I think we’re getting really close to solving it. And I just—I feel so stressed, Dad, and I—“ she laughs, because she has to, “—I have a perfect supervillain origin story, and I feel like I’m gonna do something terrible if we invent a time portal or something?” 

“What kind of terrible thing?” Her father rubs his face and for a moment she feels shame at waking him for such a stupid thing—such a stupid thing that will only upset him. 

“I’m kind of afraid I’m gonna use it to go back in time and help mom?” She takes a lock of blonde hair between her fingers and twists, twists, twists—a nervous tic Nafisa made her conscious of. “And that that’s going to change everything—like, _destroy_ everything, if I go back and prevent mom’s death?” 

“Honey.” The sigh and the silence last forever in the dark. “I think you’re overthinking things, and I think you need to talk to Frank if you’re so stressed. He’ll cut you a break, I’m sure.” 

She tries to regulate her breathing and see the intelligence in her dad’s answer. “Okay. Okay, yeah, I’ll do that tomorrow.” And like always, she stretches out onto the cold side of the bed and pretends that her dad is capable of scaring all the other nightmares away; she waits for sleep. The last thing she hears is a slurred, "It's all about which wolf you feed," and while it makes her smile, it doesn't comfort her much. 

Morning, of course, does not find her talking with Frank in the AI lab; it finds her, instead, lounging on a couch in the Artist’s Colony, sitting with her head on Nafisa’s shoulder as she repeats what she told her dad. 

Nafisa takes her hands; the motion makes Casey sit up straight and look directly into her girlfriend’s eyes. Nafisa looks so serious, so intense, that it makes Casey want to laugh. 

“I promise you, Casey, I will stop you from completing your supervillain origin story.” Now Casey does laugh, and Nafisa successfully maintains her straight face. “If those nerds in R Colony solve the Unsolvable, I personally promise you that I will break into their lab in the middle of the night and destroy their time portal, or machine, or whatever. I will crush it into a thousand pieces like some 18th century Luddite and you will never be able to go back in time and end up destroying The World in the process. And I will beat up anyone who tries to fix it.” 

Casey has to release Nafisa’s hand in order to wipe a few tears away. “Thank you.” 

And Nafisa leans in, to plant a gentle kiss on her lips. “You’re welcome.” 

~~ 

Frank encourages her to retire the Unsolvable Problem lab and replace it with an actual rec room; the other scientifically-minded Dreamers don’t let her hear the end of their irritation at her decision, but she can bear it because Nafisa supports her and her dad does, too, and with them backing her up, she’s sure she can do anything at all. 

~~ 

She’s twenty-three and Tomorrowland has already seen five potential villains—they’re kids, mostly, but there are some adults who have problems they don't know how to fix. They personify her fears about herself and when she talks with them, she always feels better—they typically have broken and bleeding hearts and do whatever they can to abuse the technology within their reach to try and fix their problems. When they share their stories together she grows calm and confident in the knowledge that she is not alone with her thoughts to use Tomorrowland for her own purposes. The five Dreamers are allowed to stay in Tomorrowland but they are encouraged to turn to art, or take time with their families; Casey befriends them and follows up with their recovery. It's a slow process, one that Frank has no patience for, but Casey argues about the importance of these five Dreamers: it needs to be known throughout the city that it is okay to falter, to fall, and that they won't lose their homes should they begin to succumb to negative thoughts. 

Frank is especially unconvinced of their importance when several more follow in their footsteps--there are at least three wayward Dreamers per year. While Dreamers are on the lookout for negative behavior or attitudes of their peers, Frank decides to create AIs that habitually scan each lab for any intenvion or creation that has a potentially harmful goal. It keeps Tomorrowland safe, and helping the Dreamers keeps Casey busy. No one is alone in Tomorrowland, and that is what will ensure its survival. 

~~ 

She’s twenty-eight and an official member of the Council of Tomorrowland. Dreamers still try to abuse the city but the city is fully prepared to help them. Casey's nightmares are completely gone. Tomorrowland is thriving.


End file.
